Family Daycare with Organic Food and Attachment Parenting

[dmpill]

Is anyone else interested in setting up a family-based daycare with organic food, no TV, no sugar (honey and maple syrup ok in small quantities), and generally following the principles of attachment parenting (see here if you aren't familiar with it http://www.attachmentparenting.org/)?

We'd like to find a couple of other families interested in this, so that we have a group of three or four children, and one caregiver. We can use our apartment in Toolo for the group, or rotate homes, or use the caregiver's home. Language can be English or Finnish or French or German, though we would prefer English.

Our daughter is 1 year old. We have a place reserved for her at the Montessori Infant Community for August, but we are a little concerned as it is merging with the French-Finnish kindergarten and Bea would be exposed to three languages all at once, as well as exposed to sugar and a lot of processed food. (The rising cost, to 1000 euros a month, is also a factor, but not a dealbreaker.) As far as I know, the Steiner system doesn't have anything available for tots her age. So we think that maybe private family-based daycare with a group of like-minded families might be a better option.

I should mention that we have an organic food business (wholesale) so it makes the organic option more affordable as we can source the food at wholesale cost and choose not to take any markup ourselves.

PM me or call me on 044 069 6560 if interested.

Dana (and Wee Bea)

[dmpill]

I see I've gotten quite a few views but no one has expressed any interest in this sort of daycare. If you view this and are not interested, can you post or PM something to let me know why? I would have thought that organic food, no sugar and no TV would be an attractive combo, given the waiting lists for the Steiner schools...

[Mook]

Finnish daycares don't have TVs. Some have their own kitchens. Many process their food (peel vegetables, cook them, etc.)

[biscayne]

Look, you probably won't agree with me, which obviously is fine, but: we have all looked at your post but you probably won't get that much interest, because a lot of the prinicples of "attachment parenting" are sort of normal here anyway, for example breastfeeding, on demand, in public, is normal and no issue here whatsoever, almost everyone does it, it doesn't fall into some "attachment parenting" catagory, just into "normal parenting". Most Finns feed their kids pretty healthful food without too much sugar anyway, so again, no biggie. Mothers get a years maternity leave to "attach" and they do on the whole spend it with the baby - "attaching", and then they go back to work and the baby goes to paivakoti, pretty much like everyone else. There are queues for Montessori and Steiner mainly because of the perception that the education provided is good and more child centred.

(fair play to you with the whole attachment thing - I spent most of the first year trying to get the whinging baby un-attached, so I could have a shower, go out, be a person and have a life...................)

[Mook]

Still having problems detaching our 6 year-old from our bed at night.

(indeed, Finland is so into "attachment, that the Neovola will warn against sleeping with your little darling while drunk, lest you squash it - didn't spot any guidance on the API website about that..)

[Flossy1978]

I agree with what the others say.

The food in daycares and schools is of very high quality here. There's no junk like you'd see in American and English schools. No chips, nuggets etc. If your child has special needs, such as being lactose intolerant, vegetarian etc, the school and daycare will see that your child is taken care of. And I think most of the food is made from scratch because it the healthy variety. Ok, maybe not the meatballs, yogurt etc. But all the other stuff is.

I remember my son always had some kind of meat and vegies, or pasta, yogurts, soups, fruit etc for lunch in daycare. And in school he gets salad and vegies and some kind of protein at every lunch meal. Except for maybe when it's pea soup day (but even that has some kind of 'meat' in it). Some days they might have porridge for lunch. Usually the porridge is of the savoury kind, not sweet.

As for attachment parenting. Well, most of that is considered normal parenting here. Because that's what it is. None of this fancy naming of something which is a normal part of life.

And who pays 1000€ a month for daycare for one child? Jesus. My son went to a government daycare. It was a well run daycare. They taught things to the children, like potty training etc. But then he went to a private daycare. In the private daycare they taught the children other things in a 'playing' way, drawing, writing, sports (seriously, he did skiing and ice-skating every week in winter from the age of four). And stuff which also encouraged group participation and learning of other skills. I didn't pay more for him to be in the private daycare than I did the government one, but my son got a lot more from the private daycare.

Good luck.

[Amor13]

Greetings,
im interested in your idea...right now im at home taking care of my children,i have 2 year son and 3 year daughter,i also have a place reserve for them in augost.Im also worry as you do about the same things.. cause we dont watch Tv,we do not eat any animal products or use sugar and we eat organic.Right now we do not live in Helsinki but thinking to move back there if the "so called" vegetarian/vegan thing in daycare becomes an isue.I will be interested in hearing more details about your idea!!!

Greetings

[Flossy1978]

There are no televisions in Finnish daycares, so stop worrying about such a thing. The children play outside twice a day for roughly two hours and have a very strict schedule in ALL DAYCARE CENTRES.

If your children are vegetarian eaters, the daycares have an obligation to work with you on it. It will not be an issue.

As for organic.... What do you mean by this? Your children should only have carrots from the organic section of a shop etc? Well, that's not going to happen in any daycare. So if this kind of thing is that important to you, it would be better if you stay home with your children or you find a private inhome daycare who would be willing to work with you. Or you start up your own organic daycare. Because a daycare can do vegetarian and even vegan, but it can't go to the store and buy organic only products I think. That's asking too much from the government because it's a 'choice', not a 'need' to be an organic vegan.

[interleukin]

Or you start up your own organic daycare.

Well that was what the OP was suggesting.

[Flossy1978]

Well, duh to me LOL.

If the person wants to start up their own daycare, isn't there all the bureaucracy to get through?

Good luck with that LOL.